Terrifying!

Munich – Half a year after Ousmane Dembele’s move to Barcelona, the euphoria has given way to great disillusionment. The balance sheet of the ex-Dortmund is frightening.

How quickly times change.

Less than six months ago, the whole of Barcelona was upside down when Ousmane Dembele was introduced at Camp Nou.

Thousands of fans flocked to the stadium of FC Barcelona, and President Josep Bartomeu let himself be carried away to a true hymn of praise:”We are very proud to have committed this player. He has shown great things in a short time, we are happy to see him in action here.”

On Monday, coach Ernesto Valverde commented on Dembele’s performance – and he didn’t sound at all euphoric:”He should use his strengths to play at a pace that he can bring to bear on his opponent. He was unhappy today, but at least he tried,”he said after Dembele’s half-hour comeback at the 0-0 draw with FC Getafe.

Troubled, but unsuccessful: this statement could also serve as a headline for the first half year of the young Frenchman, who had struck from Borussia Dortmund to Barcelona last summer.

The 20-year-old has played a total of eight compulsory matches for Barca so far – only three from the beginning. He stood on the lawn for only 290 minutes. With a transfer sum of 105 million euros, Barca has so far spent 362,069 euros per minute of betting for him.

He hasn’t scored a goal for his new club yet, but he has only scored two goals.

He missed many games because of injuries. After contracting a muscle tear in his thigh in September 2017, he obviously wanted to force his comeback – and again injured his thigh in mid-January.

However, it could become even more difficult for him to return to regular operations. This is not only due to his weak performance against Getafe and the subsequent criticism of his coach.

With Philippe Coutinho’s commitment to Liverpool, Barcelona has even more options in the attack. The Brazilian quickly found his way around his new home country and scored his first goal in his fifth appearance for the Catalans – in the semi-final return of the cup at Valencia.

He is thus well on his way to compensating for the loss of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain.